Interesting, but

This case has always fascinated me. It's been brought up in classes, both in high school and college and it's been used to compare many other crimes, but it's fascinating to know how few young people know it today. I asked two people if they had watched and they didn't even know the case. I was shocked.

My big issue with the documentary as a film is the frankness of those meeting Bill (for the first time). Even after 40-50 years, normal human beings aren't so detailed in the horror of the event. They also wouldn't take kindly to someone making them a culprit, even simply by saying they were guilty by association. That combined with the extremely unnecessary and awkward re-enactment soured me on the film as whole. Where I found it interesting was the insights into her life. The guys who knew her from the bar, her lover, her husband's refusal to speak and the idea that she was so outgoing, she'd never fear being alone on the street, made her more human than ever.

I also found the idea to knock the New York Times odd, because if not for them, would the killer have been found? If not for the case becoming so big, would the guilt of turning away impacted our attitudes? I also feel and this is deeply sympathetic, not meant as ridicule, that Bill has some real issues in his own life and seems to blame everything that ever happened to him on his sister's death. Even the health issues of his parents, he tied to her killing. Meanwhile, the older siblings and even the younger, seem to be hampered more by his inability to deal with it, than the death itself. Interesting documentary and definitely good, but so much of it is about one man's burden and that aspect of it, didn't really connect with me.